JOHN MOULTRIE, JUNIOR, M.D., 1729-1798* ROYAL LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF EAST FLORIDA By ELEANOR WINTHROP TOWNSEND, M.D. CHARLESTON, S. C. OLONIAL history in Amer­ John Cranston,3 upon whom was con­ ica abounds in the names of ferred the first medical degree in Amer­ physicians who played im­ ica, by act of the Assembly of the Col­ portant parts in the political ony of Rhode Island and Providence Caffairs of their country. Many werePlantations men convening in 1663-64, of rare ability and versatility. Some served his colony not only as its lead­ continued through life the practice of ing physician and surgeon, but also as medicine, whether interrupted or ac­ attorney-general, as commander-in- companied by their activities as col­ chief of militia, and in other official onizers, governors, or military men, positions before becoming governor. while others became in the true sense To John Brooks,4 physician, colonel “medical truants” and forsook medi­ in the continental army, and later gov­ cine for other chosen Helds of interest ernor of Massachusetts, James Thacher, and service. It is not strange that these better known for his “American Med­ men should have been called upon to ical Biography,” dedicated his work en­ share largely in guiding the destinies of titled “A Military Journal during the the country in those rigorous times, in American Revolutionary War, from view of the self-discipline and the men­ 1775 to °f which President tal stimulus which education for their Adams wrote, “It is the most natural, profession must necessarily have simple, and faithful narrative of facts brought to them. John Quincy wrote that I have seen in any history of that in 1719, “Of all the Studies which em­ period.” ploy the Faculties of reasonable Men, Among the colonial physicians who none open the Mind more, or give it a Filed executive positions was John juster Turn of Thinking, than Phys- Moultrie, Junior, Royal Lieutenant- ick.”1 Governor of East Florida, son of Dr. Physicians were numbered among John Moultrie of Charles Towne, the early governors and members of South Carolina, and brother of Gen­ governing councils of the colonies from eral William Moultrie who in command New England to the southernmost. Be­ of a few strategically placed troops de­ fore serving his colony in executive ca­ fended Charles Towne harbor against pacity, Governor Edward Winslow2 of the attacking British fleet in 1776. The Massachusetts had saved it from a first of his distinguished family to be threatened Indian massacre and possi­ born in America, he was the first na­ ble annihilation, by the good will he tive American to be graduated in med­ incurred in attending the chief, Massas- icine from Edinburgh University.5,6 soit, during a serious illness. Captain Of ancient Scottish lineage, his an­ * Read before the Medical History Club, Charleston, S. C., December 9, 1937. cestors were Lairds of Seafield, Mar­ parish of Culross, Shire of Eife. His kinch, and Roscobie, in whose history only son, John, born there in 1702. was adventure and romance are not lack­ educated at Edinburgh, became a sur­ ing. One John Multrare (one of six geon in the British Navy, “that his different spellings of the same name in theoretical knowledge might be per­ old MSS and charters7) who succeeded fected and confirmed by practice and to the title in 1540, was the bitter observation at the bedside of his pa­ enemy of his neighbor James Kirk­ tients,”8 and emigrated to Charlestown caldy of Grange, and their enmity be­ in 1728. On the twenty-second of April came a link in the chain of political of that year, the Register of St. Philip’s events which bound Mary Queen of Parish, Charlestown, South Carolina, Scots more firmly to her doom. This records his marriage to Lucretia John had received from Mary by Royal Cooper, daughter of Dr. Barnard Chris­ Charter, in 1547, four acres of land tian Cooper, of Goose Creek. held until then by Kirkcaldy, whose There were four sons of this mar­ hostility to the Queen was so deeply riage. John, the eldest, born January stirred thereby that when she became 18, 1729, became lieutenant-governor, the target of accusations following in 1771, of His Majesty’s Province of upon the murder of Darnley, Kirk­ East Florida and held that office caldy devised a caricature of her under throughout the Revolution. James the Moultrie crest. As Miss Strickland having been attorney-general of the (“Lives of the Queens of England") Province of South Carolina, became writes: Chief Justice of East Florida. William, Mary was peculiarly annoyed at one of the third son, for whom Fort Moultrie these gross personal caricatures called The is named in honor of his defense of Mermaid which represented her in the Charlestown Harbor, became a major- character of a crowned syren, with a scep­ general in the Revolutionary Army tre formed of a fish’s tail in her hand, and and later the governor of the state of Hanked with the royal initials m.r. South Carolina. Thomas, a captain in a striking likeness of Mary’s lovely fea­ the Revolutionary Army, was killed in tures . with melancholy expression. the siege of Charlestown in 1780. In the description of the Moultrie By his second marriage, to Elizabeth arms entered in the Lyon Office Rec­ Mathewes, Dr. John Moultrie had one ords, Edinburgh, a.d. 1672-76. is found son, Alexander, who became the first the statement: “A wreath of his col- attorney-general of the state of South lours is set for his crest, a Mermaid Carolina. proper.” Ebe father of this distinguished The estate of Roscobie, bought in group of sons, Dr. John Moultrie, the 1631 by one Robert Moultrie, who emigrant to Charlestown, entered thor­ sold Seafield and Markinch, was sold oughly into the life of his community about 1800 by Catherine Moultrie to and his profession. In 1729 his name William Adam, Escp, the friend of Sir appears as one of the founders of the Walter Scott.7 St. Andrews Society, of which later he John Moultrie, a second son of served as president from 1760 to 1771, James Moultrie (1686-1710) whose eld­ the year of his death. He was a member est son James inherited the estate, mar­ of the Charles Towne Library Society ried Catherine Craik and lived in the and a vestryman of St. Michael’s Church. He is recorded in 1734 as hav­ and in an unusual number of cases pro­ ing been paid by St. Philip’s vestry for duced fatal consequences. He was hospital services; in 1747 and again in the idol of his patients. ... So great was 1759 as quarantine officer; in 1760, as the confidence reposed in his judgment, having inoculated on February 11 all that they who were usually attended by the family of Robert Pringle, smallpox him, preferred his advice and assistance, even on the festive evening of St. An­ having appeared in January; and in drew’s Day, to that of any other profes­ 1763 as a signer of the inoculation sional man in his most collected mo­ promise. This was an agreement, in ments. response to the accusation that the phy­ sicians were perpetuating the disease As the eldest son of a prominent by inoculating, to discontinue inocula­ physician, John Moultrie, Junior, tion for six months provided no one turned naturally to medicine and at inoculated in any way. The thirteen seventeen years of age, on May 23, names signed to this document have 1746, he sailed from Charlestown to been said to be a list of the reputable study abroad. Naturally too, he chose practitioners of the time there.9 Edinburgh as his destination; and so In the South Carolina Gazette of it would appear that both father and Thursday, June 5, 1755, we may read son came within the sphere of influ­ that “on Monday, the 2nd instant, met ence of the great Alexander Monro, at Mr. Gordon’s, the Faculty of Phys- who, having returned to Edinburgh in ick, (Doct. John Moultrie, President)’’ 1719 after studying in London and on which occasion were passed resolu­ Paris and with Boerhaave in Leyden, tions “for the better Support of the had begun in 1720 his lectures in anat­ Dignity, the Privileges, and Emolu­ omy and surgery in the newly estab­ ments of their humane Art.” lished university where he was to con­ The account of his life given by tinue for nearly forty years.10 Holding Thacher brings before us certain fea­ one of the two professorships estab­ tures not only of the character of the lished to initiate a course in medicine elder Dr. Moultrie but of the thought within the University of Edinburgh, of his times. Monro made his lectures widely com­ prehensive. Beginning each year with He . for forty years stood at the the history of anatomy, he proceeded to head of his profession in that city. He possessed great talents for observation, osteology, normal and pathological; and was wonderfully successful in dis­ muscles, nerves, and vessels, including covering the hidden causes of diseases their pathology; comparative anatomy and adopting remedies for their removal. with demonstrations; surgery and His death was regretted as a great pub­ bandaging; and general lectures on lic calamity. Several of the ladies of physiology. “Young anatomists’ imagi­ Charlestown bedewed his grave with tears, nation,” he said, “cannot follow a long and went into mourning on the occasion. chain of descriptions, especially when The year after his decease was distin­ they are not taught at the same time guished by the deaths of several women in childbirth.